Her Smile, His Laugh
by Dust in the Light-Crisi
Summary: Their romance was brief. But no less heaven sent. He'd fallen from the skies to meet her. And he had accused her of being an angel.   One shot. Based on the details of FF7's Romeo and Juliet. Highly stylized, several added scenes. T for some references.


**This is a highly stylized, emotion-driven piece I've been working on. I don't use names in it, but it's not exactly difficult to figure out who is whom. **

**I tried to include some cuter fluff between Zack and Aerith. But be warned, cute as it may be, it ends the same.**

**Disclaimer: I don't even own most of this plot. I'm just obsessed with this pairing.**

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><p><strong>Her Smile, His Laugh<strong>

**A Oneshot**

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><p>She was always smiling.<p>

Every day of her life. Just as she spread flowers around the metropolis, she'd also spread her smiles. Most people, when they smiled at you, particularly in the city, it was hollow. They only did so on a robotic impulse, meant to lighten the mood or successfully get whatever they wanted. Be it money or attention. But her smiles…they were genuine. They didn't spawn of want. She gave them out so freely.

Her laughter was much the same, light and bubbly. It made you feel good to make her laugh. No wonder they got on so well. His laugh was just as potent. She loved to hear his laugh, clear and loud and full. He didn't care about the snide glances he got from the people in the slums, as if they faulted him on being merry.

Their romance was admittedly brief. But it was no less heaven sent; after all, he'd fallen from the skies to meet her. And he had accused her of being an angel. Some might say it was destiny, for it was the luckiest break he'd ever had. With all that he was going through, he needed someone like her. To give his own cocky smile a chance to exist and run freely.

Days spent wandering the scantly lit streets hand and hand, spreading their laughter and smiles across the streets beneath the plate. He'd defined her in a way no one had before. Touched her life and created a reason for her to get excited every morning as she raced out to meet him.

He helped her sell the flowers she'd grown in the church. He told her the city would be full of flowers and her wallet would be full of money. The flowers made people happy. They were sold cheaply, but always with a smile. Some people only bought them to see her smile. It was worth a couple coins to see such a pure smile.

She always stayed beneath the plates and admitted she was afraid. Afraid of the sky. The vast, open expanse of blue…she feared without something to ground her she would be sucked upwards. Yet he came and went freely under its watchful blue eyes, free as a bird. He promised her one day they would both go up to the top plate together. That way, if she was turned out to be right and the sky ate them, they would still be together. She wouldn't lose much of anything then, because she would have him.

Her appearance began to reflect his influences. One day, he bought her a pink ribbon for her hair. It became practically glued to her head. She barely ever took it off. It had become a part of her and she even managed to thread her ever-present token into its folds. And he'd asked her to wear pink. He liked pink. She told him if he wore pink, she would too. So he bought a ribbon to match the one in her hair and tied it to his leg, hidden beneath his black pants, but it never came off.

Their relationship grew as their feelings for one another deepened. She'd kissed him goodnight once. One small, brief peck on the lips, but nothing greater. It was perfect. He didn't push her any further…there was no need. If he wanted someone easy, he wouldn't be with her. Anyone easy wasn't worth it. But she was. She was worth more than anything in the world. Her and her beautiful smile.

When he couldn't be with her, she wrote him, occasionally sneaking in short phone calls. But they didn't have much money, so she couldn't call him as much as she would have liked. Sometimes he was gone only hours; other times it could be weeks before she could hold him again. She'd get anxious at those times, but he would always come back to her. Him and his smile.

One day, his smile wouldn't come. His laughter had been replaced by pain. She didn't ask what had murdered his happiness, but she did wrap her arms around him and hold him tightly. He felt like a child in her arms and he melted into her embrace. The pain was less with her holding him. Under her care, it had dulled to an ache, and then faded further, only plaguing his nights.

She'd thought about more one night. While they sat in the church, she'd kissed him, more forcefully than she had ever dared. But he stopped her. He had guessed, rightly so, that she wasn't ready. He told her he could wait. And he wanted to wait. He wanted to stay with her forever. She wasn't just some fling to him. She was the one.

Her best day with him had been the one they'd built a flower wagon together. It was meant to be a better way to transport her product, he'd said. But really, it was just time to spend with him. He'd assembled it from a few scraps…pretty good really for a teenager with no experience. Aloud, she teased him about it. She knew full well that it was perfect. But she didn't want him to leave just yet…she'd had such fun assembling it with him, watching him hopelessly tinker around with the pieces, trying to make them fit together. She had twenty-three tiny wishes, but they all added up to the same thing. She wanted to spend more time with him.

But she couldn't keep him forever. The company would always keep them divided. He was always a phone call away from leaving and she knew in her heart if he kept this up one day he wouldn't come back to her.

She hadn't expected it to be so soon. She hadn't expected that day to be the last time she'd see him. Hadn't fathomed that phone call would be the last time she'd hear his voice.

She wasn't stupid. She felt something was wrong long before news of the deaths of two soldiers and two infantrymen came to Whispered around the city. The smile fell from her face. She felt true sorrow for the first time since her birth-mother's death. Yet again, she wasn't stupid. The papers said he was dead. And so did the company. But she knew better and so did they. She noticed how they didn't look her in the eye when they insisted the lie was a truth.

So she kept writing and she kept selling. She wrote to him. About silly things…about trifles she'd faced. She continued her rounds across the metropolis. But her smile came a little less freely and there was less to laugh about. Even though she knew the truth, doubt still crept into her mind. The part of her that was human began to wonder if what she'd felt with him had been real. Or perhaps it was just a game, an amusing fling for him.

But she didn't stop writing him. No matter how often they insisted he was dead. When they stopped even accepting her letters, she began pouring them into his letterbox. Eventually, to indulged and pacify her, they took the letters, promising to deliver them if by some miracle he came back from the dead.

He'd come back, she kept telling herself. He'd promised her…they'd see one another again.

Meanwhile, he was very much alive. They kept trying to break his mind, to convince him he was not human. But memories of her kept creeping back, keeping the air drawing in and out of his lungs. Whenever he was conscious he would try. Try and pound against the glass, hoping one day it would shatter under his fist.

Sometimes he would actually get somewhere. His captors were unenhanced. They could not beat his strength. But he couldn't leave his friend behind and to that end his escape attempts always fell short. He always tripped up and was captured again and again. But he didn't stop trying.

He fasted for days, knowing his food was drugged. They needed to keep him pacified, but he wouldn't be calmed. He would feign sedation and then scream and bite and kick the moment he was out of his cell. Eventually they started darting or gassing him first. And they always kept him separate from his sick friend.

But that didn't stop them from talking. Soft conversations, idle chatter. Future plans, memories from their lives. People they'd known and things they'd done. Anything unrelated to their hopeless situation where one day melded into another without a single ray of light. He didn't even know if it was light or dark outside; there were no windows. They were afraid he might be able to somehow escape if there was one.

She came up a lot in their conversations. He told his friend of her smile…of her beautiful laugh. The future he'd dreamed up for them both…one he was slowly beginning to think might never happen. The thought terrified him. He chased it from his mind desperately. But it still haunted his thoughts…that whispering doubt.

His friend lasted about a year under their care before he broke. Before he was reduced to a heap, a shadow of the already shy cadet he was. Often he was wracked with such sickness from mako that he couldn't respond to the soldier's musings. Other times pain had so wracked the man's body that he sunk into unconsciousness. Through it all, his friend kept telling those stories.

Somehow, thoughts of her smile kept them both aware of anything. He kept picturing her. If he kept holding on, kept fighting, he might see her again. His friend had never met her, but the passion the other man held for her kept him talking and his voice was the only thing tethering the cadet to the planet.

Then he broke. Almost three years he lasted before he lost all of his mind and everything became fuzzy. He stopped trying to escape and he fell into a lull. For all intents and purposes, he had become a machine. He never smiled. He never laughed. He never thought. All hope had faded away and she seemed further from him then the most distant star.

She felt his hope break. One morning, she woke up and found she was crying. She didn't know why, but she couldn't stop either. She didn't leave the house that day. She just lay in her bed, feeling lost as a small child. Her mother had come up and consoled her the best she could, inwardly cursing him for hurting her daughter so. She had no idea at that moment he too was crying.

He didn't know why either. He couldn't feel any of his body so he didn't even register he was crying until, in a rare fit of clarity, his friend had noticed his tears and brought them to his attention. He didn't respond, but only because he couldn't. His brain tried to conjure up an image of her smile, but he couldn't remember what it looked like. Nor could he remember how to smile himself.

It was a horrible loss…his darkest moment. Darker even then the bloody experiments which stole that night's sleep from him. To have all thought torn from him and to lack something so basic and essential as the ability to express happiness…that was a fate worse then any he could think of.

Yet he slipped away once more. Fading into the wall as another year of his life drifted away with more mako and more blood and more pain. But it was all the same and he was numb to it by now.

The day he woke up was one he'd never forget.

It didn't feel any different than the rest to begin with. He sat in his cell, in a bleary state of consciousness. Somewhere in between. Not awake but not asleep either. One of the guards…a burly, stout man had come to work that day unusually happy. He was whistling. And when the guard looked at him, he smiled.

It wasn't that mechanical, cruel grin the lead scientist sometimes got. Nor was it a pitiful gesture. It was full and truly happy. He saw her again, smiling at him once more. It was like his brain had been woken from a long slumber.

He was spirited away…or his mind was at the very least. He was no longer in a dank cell; the potent smell of mako—an acrid scent of electricity and rotten eggs—overpowering his other senses. His skin no longer burned and itched form months…possibly years…without hygiene greater than the quick soak he got whenever he started smelling horrible enough.

But he was with her again, hand in hand. It was a hallucination, he knew. But what a great figment for him to have created. She was trembling beneath his touch, both frightened and excited. Across her arm was a basket filled to the brim with flowers of all shapes, sizes and colors. He was a bit surprised by this. What happened to their wagon? Why did his imagination create something in its stead?

He ignored the idle thought and found himself tugging lightly at her arm, leading her up a steep incline. When they reached the top, she gasped and cowered back ever so slightly, but he put a hand on her back, gently encouraging her to continue. She took a moment, but then stepped forward into the daylight. The sun warmed both of their backs together for the first time. And the sky, clear and forget-me-not blue, shimmered like a gleaming pearl. She took a moment before she calmed the rest of the way though, content that they weren't about to be pulled upwards into the heavens.

She stared upwards, drinking in all she saw. Even hazed by smog, the sight before her was astounding. For the sky connected the entire planet. There wasn't a single place wasn't under its gaze, if not directly then by extension. And the sky was older than all it surveyed. The very ground they stood on was much younger. It had seen eons of everything there was to imagine. Blood and tears. Smiles and laughter. It had watched mothers raise their daughters to become mothers of the next generation before passing on. It had seen change and strife.

Such a wondrous thing to contemplate; yet few ever appreciated the beauty that sat in front of their noses. They never bothered with the mysteries and questions of the unknown. But she was not like the others. She saw what they missed. This was also yet another thing that so connected the couple; for he was beginning see these things as well.

She turned to him and she smiled. Her image began to shimmer and blacken until she'd faded from his sight. Then the city followed.

Next thing he knew he was back in his prison cell, with a very stoic faced guard watching him. Had that all been in his head then? He didn't know but he wasn't certain it mattered. Either way, the haze had been lifted from his eyes. He felt and saw and smelt and heard and thought again. And once more, he felt the pull. The desire to escape from this hellhole and return to her side.

Yet he was so weak to begin with. He could barely stand and the men guarding him seemed like mountains. He forced himself to sleep lots, trying to gather up energy wherever he could. His food wasn't drugged anymore and he made sure to eat every last bite, no matter how gritty it tasted as it passed down his gullet.

They didn't water him enough either. He found himself at an impasse. Dehydration would not help his recovery. It was then that he noticed there was a leak in the ceiling. A little, tiny crack, yet there was a steady stream of drops. He tore a strip from his shirt and stuck it right under the spot. At the end of every day when the guards weren't looking, he'd wring out every last drop into his mouth.

The water was deliciously refreshing on his parched throat. It was far better than the mouthfuls he got from his captors. It seemed to fill him with more and more strength. Even though it was small in quantity, every drop seemed to shoot through his system like a drug.

Still, his strength was slow to return. He longed to converse with his friend once more, wake him up too. But he knew it would make his mouth dryer and his voice was lacking besides.

Perhaps subconsciously, he still felt her. He did not know just what she had done for him, but she had done something. Something miraculous. It was as if she was in there with him, egging him on. Reminding him of his promise. But he made sure to bide his time. He couldn't afford a failed escape; he had to succeed. So he continued his charade, pretending to be dead inside.

The day finally came when he, again, found himself in mako. He heard a voice and saw his old friend and mentor…but the words his mentor spoke were not kind ones. They were taunting, if a bit angry. He was on the outside of the tank, a smile printed across his face.

He pounded on the glass, harder and harder till his fist sailed straight through it. He was almost shocked for a moment as the mako drained from the crack and he found himself able to breathe air once more. Blood flowed from his cut, but he didn't care. It would soon seal anyways. His focus was on escape. His arms slammed against the cool glass. His legs, too, smashed. A large crack formed. When he next struck it shattered and he found himself pouring out of the tank with the mako.

He sputtered for a moment; little tendrils of pain shooting up wherever the glass found purchase in his uniform. It took a moment before his legs came to him and he stood, immediately making his way to his friend. His fist slammed against the emergency release and the mako came out in a tidal wave, along with his friend.

He caught the cadet and propped him against the unbroken tank then rushed off. Surprisingly, it didn't take him too long to find his sword. And despite being covered in crystallized mako, his magnet still gave that satisfying click as it secured the blade to his back.

He returned to find his friend still spurting out a bright green stream of mako. His eyes were open, but he didn't give much indication that he was there. Those eyes…a glow had been added to them now.

Despite his weakness, he somehow managed to drag his barely-conscious friend out and into the light. He outfitted his friend with a change of clothes…army uniforms. Then he addressed the issue of his own uniform. It was torn and bloody and reeked of vomit. He ended up changing into another outfit as well. The only items of clothing he kept was his back magnet and the pink ribbon still tightly tied to his leg. Their new cloths smelled musty and the shoulder pads were outdated, but at least they were clean and warm.

Upon inspecting his old clothes, he was surprised to find a small piece of paper. It was crumpled and worn, yet somehow still legible. His eyes scanned it and he almost teared up, hit with unexpected memories. The day he'd left…her wish. It had seemed so easy at the time. Spending time with her wasn't a chore. It wasn't even all that difficult.

But he'd broken that wish. He hadn't even called her the whole mission…too wrapped up in what was going on around him to treasure what he'd had. When she'd called him, he was almost…annoyed. At the very least he was distracted.

He'd make it up to her. He would never leave her side again. He'd go back to the city and he'd find her. They'd both steal away into the countryside…away from all the evils of the company and their mad scientists.

And his friend could come with them. They would both find something they were good at and live as a family. He'd protect them both from anything he faced.

He kept fighting. Every obstacle he met head on. He would protect his friend and return to her. Those two thoughts drove him to keep marching, straight through the nights. His friend slung across his back and their enemies appearing at every turn.

He had to be strong. He had to smile again, to keep on the bright side. They wouldn't win if he kept positive. He knew if she were here, she would be doing the same. Fighting with a smile on her face.

He didn't know the truth. Couldn't even fathom how long he'd been holed up underground as a specimen. He guessed it was at most a year or two, but then the cold hard truth slapped him in the face. Four years, 89 letters. Of which this was the last. He didn't know whether to cry out of joy or out of sorrow. She had written him…dutifully for this long. Never doubting, ever faithful. But he'd lost his teenage years. He'd lost their teenage years.

And she was, at long last, moving on. She'd finally given up on him and perhaps she was moving on! His pace was hastened by this sobering news. He couldn't let her move on. Not now that he was at long last free.

It was true. She had lost most of her faith in him. She couldn't sit around and wait for him forever; no matter how appealing that idea was. Yet in her heart, she knew he was coming. No more false alarms…this time it was true. She would be back in his arms and they would smile and laugh together again as she had dreamed every night since he had left.

She'd gone to the church just for his arrival. Tending her flowers as she always had, she waiting for the man who's marry laugh and sky blue eyes had so ensnared her. But he never came.

She felt it as if it were her own skin. Her own body being cut through and ripped to pieces. Every bullet that cut through his skin caused her heart to jump and beat erratically. He'd bounce back up every time and keep fighting. But he was growing tired and weary. His wounds no longer sealed up so fast. His system was burning through its mako reserves. Sooner or later there would be none left to stimulate his cells to keep multiplying.

But he was so close. He'd nearly managed to take the entire army out when a bullet slammed into his kneecap. His system desperately tried to heal the wound, but there was scantly any mako left over. The injury forced him to drag the limb painfully behind him. He could barely walk, much less dodge. Memories grew fuzzy as his system slowly began to shut down.

Yet he would not let go of her memory. Her green eyes…her soft skin…the way her body seemed to fit against his. And that smile. He needed to see it again, needed to see her at least one more time. What was he doing? Oh yes, he was going to see her.

Disoriented, he turned away from the battle slightly. More bullets tore through every vial organ. Whatever mako was left in his system, it could not even begin to touch his injuries. Every vital organ peppered with steel and gunpowder.

He fell to the ground with a cry, gasping for breath. He tried to push himself back up, but he slipped, the mud beneath him treacherous to his weak body. One final bullet and he blacked out.

When he woke, every fiber of his being was on fire. His nerves screamed and burned as they were pelted with raindrops. But he had to get to her. He couldn't…forsake…his promise. He swore.

Somehow he managed to get enough strength to drag himself across the corpse-strewn field. He didn't make it far…only to the edge of the hilltop. By the time he got there he was completely exhausted. He couldn't even turn his head to see the city. So close to his goal. So close to her.

He heard a familiar voice and found his friend, staring down at him. He was awake at long last. And he was alive. His hiding spot had worked it seemed. That or the remaining three men had decided better of fighting another man, vegetative though he was.

He knew what he had to do. This was the end for him. He would never see her again with his own eyes. But through his friend, he would see her again. He would be gone, but he would live on through the young cadet. He failed at his task. Failed to see her again. Failed to save his mentor and many of his friends. But the man before him…he'd rescued him from the lab. He'd dragged him all the way to this hilltop overlooking the metropolis. He'd taken out those who threatened him. And now he would die knowing his friend to be his living legacy.

His friend would carry the grim news of his own demise to her. He would carry all of his dreams and honor for as long as he lived.

But not this soldier. He would die…on the very same hilltop that, seven years ago, the soldier had stood upon, gaping in awe at the city. The story would end right back where it began. He would close his eyes one last time and enjoy his last breath, a smile twinging at the corner of his lips. One to make her proud of him. He felt the rain drip from his face and heard its steady pounding on his eardrums. He smelt its dewy, fresh scent one final time. And then his senses left him and he was still.

She knew the moment he was no more. Felt his essence slip away at the same time that her knees bent sharply and she fell to the floor. Her bottom lip quivered as a sense of complete melancholy filled the air. A soft rain drifted down from the hole he'd created. That same sky had seen it all. Seen the air puff from his lungs one final time. Seen the blood pour from his wounds. Watched him as, at long last, he gained his wings, like he had always dreamed. And it now watched as remnants he left behind, a heart-broken girl and an unstable boy, tried to put the pieces back together.

She wasn't smiling anymore…

And he couldn't laugh anymore...

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><p><strong>Lots of it is open to interpretation. <strong>

**~Crisi**


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